A Life in the Sun
by romantiscue
Summary: When Sasuke kills the man Hinata has decided she loves, she travels back to a time where she can grow strong enough to unmake that one event. All for him. At least, that's what she tells herself when she leaves the present. Pragmatic!selfish!Hinata. Because I got tired of blushing, sweet, canon-compliant!Hinata and onetruluv time-travel stories.
1. Prologue: The Unmaking

**A Life in the Sun**

_Prologue: The Unmaking_

* * *

Hinata died in the third year of the Fourth Shinobi War, but it took two more years for her to actually stop breathing. By that time, Konoha was slowly pulling itself together as its inhabitants rebuilt what had been destroyed in the fighting. And by that time, Uchiha Sasuke had become a real contestant for Hokage, with enough support to rival Naruto.

He'd helped them win the war, had stood with Madara's blood staining his arms up to his elbows and declared himself the final Uchiha. Then gone on to help with the reconstruction, rekindling his friendship with Naruto and Sakura-san and settling himself comfortably into the rhythm of the village. And Hinata's admiration for her childhood's precious hero, her "Naruto-kun" faded into nothingess.

Because Naruto could forgive Sasuke the pain he'd caused him, both physical and mental, could forgive the last Uchiha's attempted assassination of Sakura-san and his returning to their village only with the intent to destroy it. Could forgive his madness and cruelty, say that the Uchiha had been confused, that he'd been twisted by Orochimaru and then by Madara. That the Cursed Seal of Heaven had forced him deeper into darkness than he'd meant to go. Pile one excuse on top of the other.

Hinata had never understood Naruto's bond to his teammates. The mean and spiteful fangirl Sakura. The cold and cruel Sasuke. Perhaps there had been warmth between the three of them, out of sight. Perhaps their bond had blossomed in shadow. And Sakura-san, at least, had grown beyond her petty childhood self, unfurled like the flower she was named after into someone worthy of respect. Sasuke had only descended into the darkness of his childhood until nothing else remained. There was weakness in allowing yourself to be consumed in such a way, Hinata had thought.

That hadn't mattered. Hinata cared little for Sakura, and if Naruto wanted to forgive his supposed best friend's decision to kill her, forgive the path of destruction he'd forged... it wasn't up to her to judge. Not her "Naruto-kun", who was always righteous and strong and just. And they were at war, in need of every strong fighter available, never mind if they had eyes as cold as a fish's.

And then in the third year of the war, Uchiha Sasuke had taken his sword and driven it cleanly into Kiba's back to get to Zetsu. And Naruto had forgiven that too. Called it a mistake. She'd seen the curse marks spread to cover the Uchiha's body, of course. But she'd also seen him let it do so. And for the first time in her life, Hinata had stood in judgment of her precious Naruto-kun - and found him wanting.

-.-.-.-

It had taken her two years to find a seal that would allow her to change it all. Two years, and a coldness that settled deep into her chest and that only her surviving teammate and sensei could penetrate. In hindsight, it'd been obvious that Kiba had been more than just a friend to her. That the reason she'd stopped watching Naruto so intently, stopped fainting and stuttering in his presence, was because her feelings had changed. And she hadn't realized that in time. Because Naruto had been more than just a crush: he'd been an ideal. And ideals, she'd realized, were a difficult intoxication to give up.

Had Hinata been someone else, she might have drank herself into a stupor at the understanding of what she'd allowed to go to waste. She didn't do that, though. Instead she knocked on Shino's door, and then knocked him into bed. Because he was Kiba's brother, even more than Hana-san had been their teammate's sister. Shino hadn't asked anything of her, not before and not after. He hadn't called her cruel for using him that way, though Hinata was sure he'd known the only warmth in her was spared for the one person she couldn't reach.

He deserved better. She never went to his bed again, and he never brought up their one encounter.

The day her preparations were complete, Hinata moved quietly into the great forest that surrounded their village. The leaves were turquoise and silver under the moonlight, and as she knelt in the circle of seals, Hinata was glad that she could leave in beauty.

With that thought still lingering, her breathing and heart stuttered to a halt.

* * *

**A/N:** I started writing this several months ago, and since I won't update any of my other stories until I've finished moving in February, I hoped this could tide you over. (A few AU/non-canon compliant details are present, I know.)

Hinata was always one of my least favorite characters in canon, in part because of her blind devotion to Naruto. Here I am attempting to write her as the kind of character I think the Fourth War and her crush's continuing obsession with the canon insane!criminal!Sasuke should have turned her into.

Do tell me your thoughts. What do you think of this Hinata? Of how she sees Naruto?


	2. The Spiderweb

**A Life in the Sun**

_Chapter 1: The Spiderweb_

* * *

This time, Hinata is born when the leaves are just turning golden. Much too early, she comes out shaded in blots of blue and purple, and spends her first weeks in an incubator with a slim tube in her nose.

It's not until twelve weeks later that she can clearly take in her parents' features. Her mother's face is pale and tired, with dark rings under her eyes. She is still beautiful, at least to Hinata. It's remarkable how much of her mother's appearance she has forgotten. The brown mole on her left cheek, the lift of her slender eyebrows and the plumpness of her mouth- she'd forgotten all of it, left with only the impression of her mother's warm smile and kind hands.

Her father's face is less lined, less stern and he holds her like she means something. She can feel his chakra hovering by her side when she wakes in the night, even more often than her mother's. It is a surprise, and Hinata isn't sure if it's a welcome one. She has plans, and they don't include honoring her father and the clan. They don't include loving Hyuga Hiashi, who she remembers as an impassive statue, a haughty taunt frozen to stone in disappointment. It is a stranger's hands that hold her so gently to his broad chest.

She is assigned a caretaker the moment they return from the hospital, and after those twelve weeks where her eyes clear, Hinata recognizes her as well. Hyuga Reiko, a quiet Branch member in her late twenties who she'd lost touch with some years after her mother's death. Reiko had been reassigned, and Hinata later found out that she'd been killed in the invasion that interrupted her first chunin exam. She'd mourned the woman's in a distant way, occupied as she was with her team and their missions.

Reiko is the first person to see Hinata activate her Byakugan, when she is seven months old. The caretaker drops the bottle of formula she's holding and her own pale eyes grow wide and startled. Hinata has to let the power flushing through the veins supplying their clan's special vision go after a few short moments, shocked to feel how lacking her body is in chakra. But her activating their family's special sight plants the seed, at least. The seed of the Hyuga heir's genius.

This time, she's going to blaze through the ranks, and mostly not for any kind of selfish motive. Mostly not to prop up her pride, to make sure she never has to see herself as_ less _ever again. Mostly.

She catches Reiko speaking with her father when Hiashi returns from a meeting later that night. "Are you sure it was a full activation?" She hears his stiff silk _hakama_ rustle as he sits down. "You are aware that chakra-flares around the eyes are not uncommon for Hyuga children at this age."

"Yes, Hiashi-sama, I'm aware of that," Reiko says patiently, and Hinata wishes the door to her room was open so she could observe their expressions. She has a plan, yes, but plans had to change according to outside actions and reactions. She curls a tiny fist in front of her face and tries to will herself to remain awake for the duration of the conversation. "It was a full activation, without a doubt. Both eyes had two fully developed dynamic veins supporting the sight."

There is a thick, thoughtful silence and Hinata slowly evens out her breathing into a semblance of natural sleep when she hears the quiet rattle of the door to her nursery. Behind closed eyelids she feels her father's chakra like the flame of a candle in the darkness. He leans over her, and maybe it's only because she's spent a life under his severe regard, but she can feel the weight of his gaze on her even without looking.

-.-.-.-

Hiashi watches her and Hinata waits patiently for another month to pass before she one day, as he's picking her up, gurgles out a word: "Father!" He's too much in control of himself to drop her, but there is a ripple in his arms and he stares down at her with pure shock scrawled over his aristocratic features. _She_ made him look at her like that, with astonishment turning into incredulous pride. She put that expression on his face.

He sets her to lessons the day after, and Hinata reabsorbs the basics of writing and speaking and masters hand to eye coordination. The clan has taken notice of her, word spreading from her various teachers and morphing until Hiashi is not the only one watching her like she's glowing.

When Hinata turns two, she's heard her father be offered the first sons of various prominent, wealthy merchant families with ties to their clan as her consort and knows that the civilian clans won't be the only ones interested in her. She'd expected this development, even if this didn't happen the last time until Hanabi entered adolescence and proved to be fairly competent in her role as the heir.

She plays _go_ with her father, and watches his pale eyes sharpen as she challenges his strategies with moves far beyond what most of her peers can do. Hinata knows just how to toe the line between impressive and suspicious, and only plays like she knows Shikamaru-san could at this age.

She doesn't see her mother very often, as her days are devoured by one lesson after another, and that shouldn't be as much of a relief as it is. Her mother doesn't have the all-seeing eyes, but her gaze penetrates in a way her father's doesn't. It's like a vivisection. The irrational thought that her mother will one day stand up and declare her to be an imposter keeps her away even when she's not caught in the daily spiderweb of learning.

"Hinata," her father says one day, "It's time you entered the Academy." She has just turned four, and it's much too early. Hinata smiles like a flower with a poisonous center, and doesn't give any indication that she knows it's because her father wants to show her off. Rumors of her intelligence have spread far enough that the ninja clans have taken notice of it as more than just civilian gossip. There are tales about how she could rival another genius, born a few years earlier to the Hyuga's rival clan.

Hinata has no plans whatsoever to be caught up in Itachi's life. She knows what he will do and why, and approves. She will not interfere. Also, the temptation of his serpent little brother being so close by… Keeping herself from acting would be near irresistible, and she can't afford a slip-up like that. She has to be strong enough to stop him, later.

So Hinata enters the Academy, and burns as brightly there as she did in the compound. The teachers praise her like she's a diamond in a basket of pebbles, and as she takes care not to offend anyone, everyone wants to be her friend. She makes a lot of good, useful acquaintances. Especially with the clan heirs, though she makes sure to never be the one making the first overture.

She'll need their regard in the future, but not only theirs- she is not so foolish as to assume that connections in the civilian world are unimportant. They too are on the village council, and they have their own kind of power. She surprised that so few of the other clan heirs seem to realize that. The daughter of the Otono clan has the ear of the daimyo's youngest son, and the daughter of the Tachibana clan has traveled to every port in Fire Country with her wealthy merchant's family. The son of the leader of the old Uzuki samurai family has highly placed cousins in Iron Country's ruling body.

Hinata weaves her webs, and her pale eyes watch the threads soar and spread outwards. Like ripples on the water, or new branches on a tree.

"Hinata-chan," calls six-year-old Ino, high voice childish but uncharacteristically respectful. "Wanna come to my place and play?"

Hinata smiles, thinks, _the Yamanaka has always been involved with the T&I_. Thinks, _there is no greater source of information that that department_. She knows they'd never let anything slip, but that doesn't mean she'll never have use of such a connection.

She goes with Ino to her house and is formal but childishly warm to her parents. Ino's mother is a civilian _ikebana_ artist named Keiko with scarred hands and a deep voice. When Ino wanders off to the bathroom, Hinata spends a few minutes speaking quietly with her about flower arrangements.

"Hinata-chan, do you want to see the garden?" says Ino when she returns, and they all trot off into the Yamanakas luxurious backyard. The scent from the flowers that cover everything in the garden is overwhelming, and Hinata consciously keeps herself from tucking her nose into her collar. She follows Ino around the yard, and the blond girl makes her a bouquet with such enthusiasm that Hinata's appreciative smile is entirely unfeigned.

When a Branch house servant comes to retrieve her late in the afternoon, Hinata thinks that the Yamanakas are surprisingly warm to be an interrogator's family. She also carefully folds the thought of Inoichi's deep water gaze into the back of her mind, to remind herself that even though she's lived twenty-six years and possesses knowledge of future events, there are people here with more knowledge and experience than she. People who see deeper and whose reach stretches farther.

The days and weeks and months pass and she plays often with civilian children and learns civilian secrets; plays occasionally with shinobi children and learn less than she wants but enough, and slowly the world around her expands and twists into the beginnings of an information network. She plays go with Shikamaru and asks about the deer; she eats lunch with Chouji and asks about food pills; she skips rope with Ju-chan of the Tachibana clan and talks merchant routes. All discreetly, and always with an hourglass in the back of her mind, the sand draining towards the bottom of the two cups as her time at the Academy draws to an end. Hinata is seven, and all her peers are several classes below her.

She passes by stands on the Konoha market and people wave to her not because she's the Hyuga heir, but because she's played with their children or the children of someone they know. People not only watch her like she's radiant, they watch her with honest smiles in their eyes. It's wonderful - it's novel - it's smothering.

The day she gains her headband is the day her father begins to speak to her like an adult. Triumph is a living thing inside her every time Hiashi looks at her and _sees_ her. Her mother watches with disapproving eyes, and Hinata doesn't care because Hanabi's birth didn't end Hisoka's life this time. Her mother loves her helplessly and wishes she could have been a child for longer, but she has Hanabi to dote on and Hinata hopes that is enough.

"You're like a little adult, Hina-chan," says Hisoka one day, stroking her hair. Her eyes are melancholy and the fingers that card through Hinata's hair are hesitant. Hinata smiles up at her, showing off the gap where her one of her front teeth used to be. Hisoka laughs. "Did it finally fall out, then?" she asks and Hinata nods.

It's a lie. Her first C-rank went the way of all C-ranks: south. A medic healed her cheekbone and jaw fracture, and had to pull the tooth out as an infection had begun to take root in her gums.

"Let's put it under your pillow for the toothfairy to find," Hisoka says, even though she knows it's too late to have Hinata believe in such a fairytale creature.

"I lost it," _somewhere far away from Leaf._ Hisoka's gaze grows sad and strangely heavy, and she presses a kiss to the crown of Hinata's head before going to find Hanabi. Hinata looks out at where they play in the yard, listens to her sister's shrieking happy laughter and rubs her thumb in the hole where her tooth used to be.

* * *

**A/N:** And here is the first chapter. Present tense as her new life begins, because I think it works for this story. What do you think of Hinata and her plans? Of her relationship with Hiashi and Hisoka?

This was originally meant to be a one-shot, but once I started writing it wouldn't stop growing. I'm aiming for a ~10-shot or so, if there's enough interest in the story. The chapters will be shorter than what I usually write, just to give you heads up.

(Thanks goes to **Against-The-Current** for her thoughts and help!)


	3. Tangled

**A Life in the Sun**

_Chapter 2: Tangled_

* * *

Hinata looked at the present day miniature Naruto, at his bright grin in the face of disapproval and his perseverance in the face of his own incompetence. At the way he would brush himself off, stand chin-up when people sneered or laughed at him. And she thought that falling into old patterns wouldn't be too difficult, if she let herself. She could mold him into the ideal she'd once seen in him. There was enough time left in the Academy for her to start making friendly overtures and reinvent him.

Hinata had considered it carefully, turned the thought over in her head. But no, she finally concluded, she's not quite that callous yet. And there is also her distinct lack of a need for an ideal, this time around. She has her strength, and she has Kiba.

So Naruto never becomes more than an acquaintance, though Hinata can't quite help herself from subtly pushing him and Sakura together. Sakura only has Ino and Naruto has nobody, and perhaps if she and Naruto grow loyal to each other, the pink-haired would-be medic will never fall for a man who would slash her throat. Perhaps Naruto will never give his loyalty away so completely that he'll be blinded to flaws that by all means should be deal-breakers in a friendship.

Hinata will never let herself fall into her past ways, she swears as she turns away from him, never admire someone her age like they're innately more than her. And she is too cautious to spend too much time with the same people, day in and day out. She can't risk them noticing her as more than a bright star. She plays _go_ with Shikamaru, looking straight into his considering eyes and countering his strategies with apparent ease. Shino had had dozen meticulous _kifus_ of their games transcribed, and so Hinata knows the Nara heir's playing style intimately. He is much more intelligent than she, but Hinata has force-fed herself knowledge since her rebirth and that gives her a durable advantage. For how long, she doesn't know, and feels the urgency beat like a ticking clock in her chest every time she manages to stay just one step ahead.

"You're interesting, Hinata," says Shikamaru one day, and there's something about the tone of his voice that makes Hinata wonder if he suspects something isn't right about her. Her mask is strong enough that she doesn't even bat an eye at the off-hand comment, but the words stay with her.

The feeling that certain people will be able to see through her like she's glass is both persistent and acute, and thus it's neither here nor there that she avoids both Kiba and Shino for the duration of her time at the Academy. It feels like a betrayal, but Hinata is woven too deeply in the web she's spun to go out of her way to acknowledge them when it will serve no purpose. She's going to protect those two, watch them grow into fine men and be their friend and more someday, but not right now. It's too early. (She's a _coward_. Some things don't change.)

Hinata left the Academy behind with acquaintances in every class, her unwitting informants, and having cultivated friendships between people who might never have looked at each other twice without her discreet nudging. She's pushed the children of clans loyal or in some way indebted to the Hyugas together with children of clans that she remembers opposed them in the past. All while making sure her friendship with all are stronger than their newfound ties to each other.

She visits the Academy as often as she can, sends letter after letter when she can't, and prunes and culls her spiderweb as its strands solidify. At least a handful of those strands are well and truly loyal to her, Hinata knows. She's going to turn them into gems, in time.

Hinata is almost nine when the team she's with is nominated for the chunin exam. Their teacher sends them off with an awkward smile. The woman has only been with them for a few months after their first jounin-sensei, a young Uchiha named Shisui, vanished overnight. Hinata feels a little sorry for her, because the two boys on her team have taken Shisui's disappearance hard and resisted his replacement's training at every turn. This with a grouchy passive-aggressiveness that required ungodly patience on their new jounin's part. Hinata imagines she isn't too unhappy about seeing them off.

A crow with one bright left eye watches Hinata and her much older teammates walk into the forest and Hinata, who sees more with this life's Byakugan than she ever did the last time, looks up at it. She knows the situation within the Uchiha clan is very soon to burst and plans to do nothing about it. She's taken care not to become friendly with any of their members, so that she won't feel like stopping Itachi when he comes roaring through his clan's compound. She's seen the ANBU captain pick up his brother from the Academy looking like he's in need of sick leave or perhaps a year's worth of sleep, and she's watched dispassionately as Sasuke's gone with him. It hadn't taken much out of her not to befriend that particular classmate, though she made sure to make her evasion look accidental. (Something she hadn't quite managed with her avoidance of Kiba, eager as he was to make new friends.)

Hinata is glad that the current chunin exam is not a complete copy of the one that Orochimaru interrupted so long ago. The forest is a lot more dangerous than it was back then, with poisonous rivers and exploding tags set in the ground, but at least she won't have to do show-off matches with the other chunin hopefuls.

It's a relief because she is distracted, which is both dangerous and rare in this life. This Hinata, the person she is today, is fully aware of where she's going and why and her focus is usually the edge of a very sharp kunai. But her reason for traveling back came by just before her team entered the forest, eyes shining with admiration and stumbling over his words as he wished her good luck. Hinata had smiled at him and thanked him and, incredibly, watched him blush. At her.

Hinata had tried to see the real Kiba, the future Kiba, _her_ Kiba, in that little boy and failed miserably.

Back when they were teammates, she'd admired his brashness and incredible loyalty. It had been the kind of loyalty that led him to expect the same level of faithfulness from others that he showed them, and to despise traitors. Hinata had approved of that way of thinking, when she finally let go of her bright-haired ideal. And she'd thought well of Kiba's abilities and his friendship, had found it easy to be kind and sweet to him. She'd fallen in love with him, in the end. He'd died, in the end. And she'd gone back for him, in the end.

…Hadn't she?

But then, why, as she watched him run off to his sister when he'd said his well-wishes, didn't her disappointment at the profound feeling of _unfamiliarity_ as he stood before her hurt more? She didn't particularly want anything to do with that boy, felt the same level of ease with him as she did around the other Academy children, if tempered by their shared history. But he wasn't difficult to look at. His bright child's eyes didn't cause ghosts of another time to ripple in front of her eyes. And that was not how it should be, was it?

In the Academy she'd avoided him like he was fire and she was dry wood, unable to keep herself from noticing him but making sure she was never close enough that he would latch onto her. She'd never looked at him like she just did. She'd never seen the absence of what made him her Kiba, not until this moment.

Hinata comes out of the forest with a single deep wound across her cheek and the realization that Kiba is probably exactly as he'd been at this age during her first life, and that she is the one who has changed. She isn't the person who saw herself reflected in Kiba's eyes and wide, fanged smile anymore. The present-day Hinata is the true heir of the Hyuga clan, one of the brightest shining stars of this generation. She's strong and intelligent, and she's a spider in the middle of a very large web. Being in love with Kiba doesn't fit in that web. She hasn't made room for it.

It shouldn't shake her so much, but perhaps because she'd assumed that he was the reason she'd grown strong in the first place - that he was her beacon as she threw herself into the murky waters of the past - it feels shallow to dismiss what she'd felt by acknowledging the lack of that feeling in the present. It would mean that she'd started over with false purpose, and after a new lifetime with the goal so clearly in sight, that's not an easy thing to accept. She should have realized, when she felt no need to befriend her teammate's child self with the justification that she was too busy setting the stage to ensure his future survival, that she'd gone back for more than just Kiba.

Perhaps he hadn't even been her primary reason for starting over. Perhaps… Hiashi's pride in her. The top spot in her Academy class and her mother alive. Her new strength. The exhilarating feeling of being the spider instead of the fruit fly. Being a person worthy of notice, impossible to dismiss. Thoughts of her worthlessness have never crossed her father's mind, this time around. (Hinata is sure of this, because she's looked at him closely after every mistake she's ever made in training. Expecting a veneer of icy disappointment to slip over his face as he turns away... the thought that he might look at her like that, _again_, put her heart in her throat every single time.)

Hinata breathes out slowly, and wonders if she isn't a lot more selfish than she's ever realized. Who had Kiba been to her, really? She'd been in love with him, she doesn't doubt that, but what had she intended when she came back here? Had she meant to seduce him? She, who would always be at least two times his age?

"Hinata-chan, you're really awesome!" he'd said, gap-toothed and lisping because of it. "Maybe we can play ninja and samurai sometime?" He had mud on his knees, snot under his nose and he wanted to play a child's game with her. Kiba was endearing and very young, and Hinata was not.

She could confess her true origins to him before she ever attempted anything more than friendship, but- Hinata thought of the man she'd loved post-mortem and of the way he'd never really learned to keep his mouth shut. Rather like Naruto in that respect. Then, reluctantly, she thought deeper of the fact that if she confessed the secret of her life, someone would know she hadn't always been _outstanding_. That she'd once been of no use to anyone, an unwanted and discarded child. The prospect was not appealing, and that this additional motive for keeping herself secret was entirely self-serving was even less so.

Was she even that same person who'd once fallen for her outspoken teammate? Hinata reminds herself that the core of her is still there, if sharpened and colder. Her father's approval is still a much wanted commodity. The idea of her own worthlessness still terrifies her. Her wish to grow stronger is more present than ever. Her ideals... _Oh._

Hinata wonders if in addition to her selfishness, she's not also more mentally weak than she'd assumed. Naruto had been an ideal, something to strive towards. And Kiba, he'd been a symbol. Of Sasuke's betrayal and her own failure and weakness, and the end of her feelings for Naruto. Her wish to be more than that, to take what she wanted and stand up for it. All of it, wrapped up in the idea of one person and what she could be with him.

In hindsight it was so obvious she could scream.

In the back of her mind, before her rebirth, Hinata had decided that her protection of Kiba would lead to a relationship somewhere down the line. Somehow. In retrospect, the idea of that perfect relationship had been something to strive towards, like with Naruto. Lacking strength of her own, she could cocoon herself in the strength of another and that would solve everything else.

Like the end goal of her life was to lay herself at Kiba's feet and love him. Just. Like. With. Naruto.

Hinata prods the slash in her cheek with a nail, and tampers down on the self-hatred that bubbles in her stomach as blood waterfalls down the side of her face. It won't do her any good. She's recognized this flaw now, and she'll carve it out just like she's done with every other useless part of herself.

(Every other _warm_ part of herself. Where is the Hinata that liked taking care of people?)

* * *

**A/N:** And here's chapter 2. I've read every single one of your reviews several times- Thank you.

What do you think of Hinata's realization in this chapter? I'm very curious.


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